


I know what schizophrenia sounds like.

by This_ape_writes



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-20
Updated: 2015-02-20
Packaged: 2018-03-13 21:40:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3397325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/This_ape_writes/pseuds/This_ape_writes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Quick one shot out in front of a diner. Mulder has a less than happy run in with his mother and an unfortunate residual side effect of hearing people's thoughts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I know what schizophrenia sounds like.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't really know what this is. It started with the sentence prompt: 'the truth is I'm worth nothing to her alive' and it had to include the random words:   
> rope  
> manipulate   
> elegant  
> cheese  
> evade   
> furious  
> planet  
> provoke  
> pancake  
> scold   
> enormous  
> train  
> humiliate   
> glamorous  
> dice  
> liberate
> 
> I hope you enjoy.

"You think I'm being paranoid but the truth is I'm worth nothing to her alive."

I stared at him. The lights from the windows of the diner we have just run out of illuminate each one of his hairs around his head like the plasma electricity ball that I remember from the San Diego science museum as a kid. And the anger coursing out of him is almost intense enough to mirror that devices electrical audible snaps. 

I know he's making an enormous mistake and reacting irrationally to something, but I don't know what to say that won't keep sounding like I'm scolding him. His shoulders drop dramatically and I flash on the thought that the only thing missing from this ridiculous Hollywood scene is a downpour of rain. 

Too bad we are in the middle of an unseasonable drought. 

The rain would have made this train wreck of emotions so much more glamorous. 

The pancake I was in the middle of eating when he stormed off is sitting at the top of my stomach like home made play doh and I swallow to try and get some relief. 

"How can you say that?" I ask as I start to walk towards him? My palms facing him like he's a cagey wild fox and not my distraught friend. "Why are you saying that? What happened with her?" I ask. He has started to shake, with what I don't know. Excess energy or nerves or shock. His right hand waves around him like a man at a craps table just about to release dice and then before I can react fast enough he's crumbled to the ground. By the time I make it to his side he's gripping his head and muttering over and over. I put my hand on his shoulders and lean in to hear that he is saying 

"You won't believe me. You won't believe me..." 

This from the man that routinely tries to talk me into believing in telekinetics and vampires as flippantly as if he were asking if I wanted coffee. 

If he thinks I won't believe him on this it means I'm about to hear some crazy shit. But it doesn't stop me from squeezing his shoulder and saying...

"Yeah? Try me." 

He doesn't respond he just holds his head with his eyes clamped shut and the longer he evades answering me the more furious I get. 

Not at him but at his mother. 

I'm trying to piece everything together from what I've seen on just my end. 

I know he was not in a great frame of mind when he walked into her house and I know he was in an even worse frame of mind walking out. I also know her well standing ability to manipulate him so I have no doubt that was part of it. 

I'd waited in the front entryway and when he'd come out we'd gone straight to the diner we were now standing in front of and no words had been exchanged between us. 

But I did have one question now. 

"Why did you scream?" I ask. He opens one of his eyes like a man with a massive migraine and he looks at me out of that one squinted eye, his hands still firmly gripped into his hair. 

"What?" He asks. 

"Inside. At the house. You screamed or, well, you yelled loudly like you were in pain."

"I did?" He says. His eyes drop down and he shakes his head. "Why?" He asks me. I rub my hand that is resting on his shoulder up and down to try and provoke him into feeling some kind of comfort. 

"I asked first," I say with a grin that I can not suppress. 

"I don't have any idea. She hit me but I don't..."

"She hit you?" I ask feeling a weird twinge of pain snake through my chest like a rope that settles and strangles my stomach. 

He shrugs like it is an inconsequential fact that isn't worth noting. 

"Yeah but I doubt that was the reason I screamed. I really screamed?" He asked. 

I don't answer. I don't feel like I need to. But I do want to change the subject. I'm sick of kneeling and these pants are already going to need a trip to the dry cleaners so I sit down on the ground and grip his shoulder tighter. 

"Hey," I say. "What did you think I wouldn't believe and what made you say that you're worthless to her, alive?" He closes his eyes with an elegant softness like someone settling in for a nice midday nap and he shakes his head. 

"I uh...it was a flash. I don't...it sounds insane. If anyone told me the same thing...I know what schizophrenia sounds like..."

"That's not making me feel any better," I say. He snorts. "What symptoms of schizophrenia do you think you have?" I ask. 

"I heard what my mother was thinking."

"Before or after she hit you?" I ask. He narrows his eyes and lifts his head to look at me. 

"After, why..." He asks. 

"Could she have been talking to you and maybe, in an altered mental state..."

"She slapped me across the face she didn't exactly give me a close fisted concussion," he says. 

"But it's possible that you..."

"No. I told you you wouldn't believe me. You didn't believe me when it happened before either," he says. He's not accusing me. He doesn't sound angry. He's just telling me what has happened. I don't believe him just like he anticipated. I sigh. Why am I always the one that has to bend what I believe? 

"Ok. Beliefs aside. Let's say that you did hear what she was thinking, what was it? What did she think?" 

"It's hard to describe. It wasn't words exactly. I just suddenly had this flash of feeling that she would be better off and happier if I was gone like my sister. No not just better, I think she believes that she would be thriving if I was gone. Like the idea that me being dead would give her the freedom she wants from thinking about my sister and my father and all of this whole mess. I keep her from that by being alive," he said. 

"Jesus," I mutter. 

"Yeah but when I told her what she had just been thinking I saw this flash across her face that I had heard her correctly and that's when..." He gestures in a mime of hitting himself and he shrugs. He sags down against the earth with his hands bracing himself. He looks like a man that is trying to pull energy out of the planets core to keep from collapsing into nothing. "I shouldn't let it bother me. I know she loves me the best that she can she's just been through so much," he says. "It just...shit...aside from how shitty that now makes me feel it's also just hearing her thoughts like that...I hadn't had that happen since..." I sigh and stop him from saying it as I put my hand on top of his. 

Since he'd been institutionalized. 

I couldn't even hear him say the words. It would hurt me too much and it might destroy what little composure he had left. 

That's it. I'm done. I scoot next to him so I can actually hug him as we lean back into the grill of his Ford Taurus. He lets me do this and I feel him sigh against my wrist that is wrapped around him and resting right below his chin. 

We sit like that for a few minutes. 

I don't know if he'll ever be ok but he's relaxing more. 

"Do you think they still have my grilled cheese waiting for me in there?" He asks. I laugh. 

"Well I left my credit card in there so I hope they realize we weren't completely leaving," I say. 

"I don't think I can eat anyway," he says. 

I hesitate with my next words...I'm really lousy at expressing things but...

"I'm glad you're here. I can't even imagine thinking... I mean if I lost you I...I couldn't...I can't..." See? I told you I was lousy at this. But I have a mind reader tucked under my chin who I feel smile. 

"Yeah?" He says. I laugh. 

"Yes."

"Mmm...," he says. "You know that questions your own sanity don't you?" He asks. 

"Shut up," I say.


End file.
